Oh hey people hey! How are you all!? It’s been an eternity since I’ve posted on here. So much has been going on and I’ve been spending more time hanging over on Instagram and just doin’ life. I know you all know that life happens and it’s busy. BUT, I have SO much to share with you. Particularly around the house. This blog was born from renovating our house 7 years ago while I was on mat leave and we worked on renovating this 100 year old gem. As you know, when we bought the house, we always knew we wanted to eventually add an addition to it. We’ve talked and talked and talked about it for years and then just decided last summer to make it happen. YES!! We decided on our contractor in August and we’re now at month 8 of the planning process. Obviously, this is not something you should rush in to, and winter in Canada is not so friendly for digging large holes in the ground. However, while the snow fell…and fell…and fell…it gave us the time to think, review and rethink on what we wanted. So here’s the last 8 months wrapped up in a quick bow:
Basement – renovated a few years ago. You all joined us on the journey…
here,
here ,
here and
here.
Remember the beach? There is no plan to change anything in the basement except that we have to pack everything up because they need to take down the ceiling to restructure part of the house.
Main floor – Currently, there is a living room, dining room, kitchen, back random room with gorgeous windows (we’ve used this room in the past as a
playroom but when we did the basement, it became a room where they kids watched tv in the morning and ate breakfast…but that’s it really…so kinda useless. And it has a gas fireplace in there from an original chimney to the house. Then there is another room that we call the “
breakfast room”. And we turned it into our breakfast room with built-ins.
Kitchen – It looked like this when we bought it.
We painted all the cabinets, new appliances and countertops etc. All the floors in the house were sanded and re-stained and some areas had new wood laid. There is no bathroom on the main floor.
Second Floor – 3 piece bathroom that we renovated shortly after we moved in. This is a photo of Nick on the phone with a plumber. All we wanted to do was take out a window and when we removed the tile, there was mold...everywhere. We were so over our heads but we did it.
Sorry for the terrible photo. This was early in my blogging.
The fourth bedroom has been the nursery to two of the kids.
It’s a great size for a nursery but that’s about it. It can’t function well as a bedroom. The bedrooms have seen their fair share of switch-ups from guest rooms, to nurseries to big kid rooms. There is also a tv room on this floor.
Third floor- our bedroom…was pink and blue when we bought the house. We painted it, laid new carpet and it has a bathroom up there.
So all in all, there isn’t a square foot of this house that hasn’t been touched, BUT with three growing monkeys, we needed four full bedrooms, apparently five bathrooms and a bigger kitchen. This is what the back of our house currently look like...
Enter in…RENOVATION 2019! Obviously it’s one of those things that started smaller and now we’re here. So sorry, this picture is terrible.
Basement – will remain the same, except the foundation for the addition is being dug out to support the addition. This won’t be finished, but used for Mr. Fix-It’s workroom and storage. If you live in an old house, you know that storage is a problem. I thought 100 years ago women wore huge dresses? Clearly, they didn’t have the same obsession with clothes that I do! Also, this gives me more space to store Christmas decor...Mr. Fix-It just died a little inside. Ha!
Main floor – Front hall, closet, living room (remain the same). The dining room has a bit of a change to the opening of the addition but nothing major.
Kitchen – the current kitchen will become a mudroom area and powder room.
I can’t wait to show you the tile…it’s amazing! It better be still in stock when we go to lay it because I feel like the colours in the tile are what I'm basing this whole reno around. I saw it across the showroom and ran to it. Love. Here's a sneak peak...
There will be a hallway between the dining room and mudroom into the addition, as well as a cutout from the dining room to addition. Hard to see but I’ll show you in
InstaStories.
Addition main floor – Think of it as a giant box with a tv area and gas fireplace and a large kitchen. Windows across the back of the house. Heaven. I used an awesome service that I want to tell you about soon that helped me design my kitchen. Amazing!
Size of the main floor addition – Roughly 650 sq feet plus the mudroom/bathroom. Same upstairs.
Let’s go upstairs…
Second floor – tv room stays the same, Ella’s room stays the same except that she wants to add to her décor (whatever that means to a 6 year old) and we’re opening up one of her walls for a bigger closet. Carter is moving upstairs to the third floor (sweet deal for him!) and Mitchell’s room is getting smaller…sorry kid, but he’s getting a fab big closet and we told him he could decorate his room to make it a hockey room ;) I may regret that when I walk upstairs and stare into a bright red wall but for now, its a win.
The nursery will become Ella and Mitchell’s bathroom (3 piece) and a hallway will be created into our bedroom in the addition. As well as, a 4 piece ensuite and a walk in closet (I’ve never had a walk in before!) Windows again across the back.
Carter moves upstairs and will use our existing bedroom furniture up there and he get’s his own bathroom which I promised him we would paint seeing how he’s not digging my pale blue damask decor and crystal hardware ;)
So…here we go. Demo began this week and I'll be over on Instastories to show you the progress. In the meantime, Mr. Fix-It and I purged, pitched and have sold tons of stuff. The house is packed up and we've moved in to my parent's 2-bedroom condo for the next 4 months! Oh, and did I mention that Mr. Fix-It is travelling like crazy for work these days and I started new job about 6 weeks ago. Pass the wine!!
Keep it Beautiful
